Did you see Kevin Scarbinsky's post today? He argues that Auburn and Alabama just aren't the same as UAB when it comes to basketball. There's a shout-out for the Blazer fans, too:

UAB has both a better team and a better atmosphere this year than Auburn or Alabama. There were more people in Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum, but only because it holds more. It sounded like there were twice as many people in Bartow Arena. That joint was jumping.

So how does that fit in with this story from Jon Solomon about how much colleges spend on recruiting athletes? He writes that last year, UAB spent $8,539 per men's basketball signee, compared to $40,522 for Auburn and $39,303 for Alabama.

Moving from sports to the arts, our sister paper in Mobile ran a long piece about UAB art professor Clayton Colvin. He's got an exhibit called "Fiction" opening at Spring Hill College and will later curate an exhibit at UAB about office and cubicle culture. That's his painting up above.

One more thing: an op-ed from retired professor Thomas Wdowiak about how much money his 94-year-old mother has spent on health care. It's an interesting perspective from an astrophysicist who worked with remote-controlled Mars rovers.